Welcome to Reality
by lalinbri
Summary: Kei almost couldn't believe it, but at the same time he had always known. He had just wokenup and the first thing he had seen was his husband on the news, a picture of him kissinganother man with a blaring headline of "Star of Japan's National Volleyball Team caughtcheating!"


Cross posted on AO3 under the same title.

Just a little something I wrote to try and get the creative juices flowing. There's nothing

happy about this. There's cheating and a little bit of swearing.

[Edited on 7/09/19]

So, I realized that while I had uploaded chapter 2 of the WTR, I hadn't uploaded the

edited version of chapter 1 yet.

Here y'all go! I present the newly edited chapter 1 of WTR so I can try to be consistent throughout the fic with how the characters address each other, and also, I fixed some typos as well (rip

uices which was in my author's note for over a year. You will not be missed lmao).

I also rewrote a few pieces, I feel like it flows a little better now than it did before and that the new details give it a bit more life.

You may want to reread this chapter before reading the newest ones if you're read WTR

before as there are a few new scenes in this chapter, though they're not major changes

that alter the plot, it's just some more details and some characters have more lines now.

In other news, it looks like my comma abuse will not be ending in the foreseeable future :D

Thanks for reading!!

[Edited on 12/28/19] for grammar and description, I also added on some parts.

* * *

Kei almost couldn't believe it, but at the same time he had always known.

He had just woken up and

the first thing he had seen was his husband on the news, a picture of him kissing another man with a blaring headline of "Star of Japan's National Volleyball Team caught cheating!"

He didn't know what he felt first. If it was the numbness, the anger, or the shock.

All he knew is he was suddenly hissing in pain, the sting of the scalding hot coffee burning his feet from the mug he had just dropped.

Well, at least this pain was physical and something he could deal with.

* * *

Once he had cleaned up the mess and nursed the worse of his burns, Kei found himself curled up in a ball on the living room couch, feet aching and heartbeat pounding.

After sitting there for what felt like for hours, Kei finally checked his phone which had been lighting up like crazy from it's spot on the table where Kei had left it when he had gone to get his coffee.

His world hadn't yet been turned on its side at that point and he kind of wishes he could go back to being the Kei of this morning, that he could go back to being oblivious and happy.

Slowly, arm somewhat numb from the position he had had it curled in, Kei reached for the device, tapping it twice to bring the screen to life.

He flinched slightly at his wallpaper which was selfie of

him and Koutar-Bokuto during a date earlier in the month.

Trying not to dwell on it, Kei forced himself to check his notification bar which displayed that he had well over 20 missed calls.

Clicking on his phone icon he saw most of the missed calls were from

Koutar-Bokuto.

The rest were from Tadashi, Kuroo, his brother and Akaashi Keiji.

Akaashi.

That was surprising.

Was he going to call and deny that he was the one in the picture?

That last night he hadn't been caught kissing Bokuto in what seemed to have been a long lasting affair?

Kei felt his heart clench tightly. The betrayal of his lover and one of his supposedly best friend's hurt horribly.

His eyes stung, unshed tears building up as he blinked trying to keep the tears at bay.

He absolutely did not want to cry over them.

They didn't deserve his sadness.

He allowed the anger of being betrayed, deceived, cast aside as if he was nothing to the dual colored haired man, to overtake him instead.

That was all they were going to get from Kei.

He didn't even dare to check his social media or text messages, clearing the notifications and

deactivating his accounts instead.

Once that was done he opened the little green phone icon again, not even bothering to open his

contacts.

He dialed a number he knew better than his own, heart pounding as the phone rang.

The person answered on the second ring.

"Kei," Tadashi's voice came through, soft and familiar.

Though Tadashi was worried about his friend he knew Kei didn't handle being questioned very well especially when scared or stressed.

Tadashi tried to keep his voice calm and saved his questions for later.

"I'm so sorry." He said instead.

Kei bit his lip, unable to stop the tears this time.

"Why am I so unlovable?" He sobbed, hand tightening around his phone.

He hadn't meant to cry, but he couldn't help it since Tadashi was one of the people he had depended on for comfort and support for the longest time.

Kei could never really hide anything from him, especially when it came to feelings and emotions.

Kei had always been insecure, especially when it came to emotional ties to people and his importance to them.

Even with Bokuto and them having been in a relationship for over a decade, he felt like he still wasn't good enough for him.

That, even when Bokuto said he loved him, he couldn't help but feel like Bokuto was just settling with him.

While over time his insecurities had lessened, they had never really disappeared.

Bokuto cheating on him proved to himself that just like he thought, he wasn't worth loving.

"Tadashi I need to get out of here, I can't...I can't be here." more broken sobs came from the blonde.

"He's everywhere!"

Clenching his phone tightly Tadashi felt his heart break.

He had never wanted to hear Kei like this. He cursed Bokuto and Akaashi in his mind silently.

"I'll be there in 20." Tadashi assured, voice still firm but soft.

The brunet was already pulling on a jacket and going for his car keys.

He was due to go in for a 12 hour shift tonight at the hospital, but he wouldn't let a few hours of lost sleep get between him and helping his best friend. "Do you want me to talk to Aki-nii and Tetsu? They're both worried as well.

Tadashi was slipping on his shoes now, taking the cup of coffee Yachi handed him, her eyes laced

with worry and hand lingering on his for a second in support.

She knew it was hard for him to have to see Kei hurting, it was hard for her as well having become close with her fellow blonde over the years.

They had seen the news this morning after Tadashi had received a text from Akiteru simply reading:

I'M GOING TO KILL BOKUTO KOUTAROU. HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEWS YET?!!

Tadashi and Yachi had both been shocked, keeping their cell phones close as they waited for news from Kei.

As much as Tadashi wanted to rush over, they still had their kids to take care of and he figured if he hadn't heard back from Kei by the time he went to drop off the kids at school he'd stop by Kei's apartment on the way home.

Forgetting Tadashi couldn't see him, Kei nodded. "P-please," the watery reply came.

"Of course Kei. See you soon."

Kei was the one who hung up, his finger swiping across his screen in a familiar motion, body

uncurling.

He put his phone down in his lap, mind going miles a minute.

He tried to stop crying, but he was hurting and the tears couldn't seem to stop now that they started, his vision going blurry behind his glasses.

"Kei?!"

He nearly jumped, the voice he wanted to least hear right now was coming from his phone, which had slid down against his thigh when he got startled.

The call must've been coming in right when he was done talking to Tadashi.

He bit his tongue to cut off his sobs, wincing at the sting.

He reached for the phone with a shaking hand, dropping it as Bokuto continued to talk, mostly

renditions of "Kei?" and "It's not what you think!".

Finally, he scooped up the phone and quickly hung up.

He didn't want Bokuto Koutarou's half assed excuses.

* * *

The dial tone rang out, Koutarou groaned in frustration as he hung up and threw his phone on the bed, running a hand through his hair.

He honestly wasn't surprised that Kei was ignoring him. He had been cheating and there was nothing else to it.

Koutarou had tried justifying his actions, not only to his friends and family but to himself as well.

He had wanted to play it off when he saw that all they had was a picture of him and Keiji.

He had wanted to tell Kei that Keiji had kissed him in a drunken stupor but that Koutarou, like a good husband, pushed him off and left.

He was sure Kei would believe him.

But then, when the video of him and Keiji kissing and basically grinding on each other started

getting shared online and on the news, he knew he was screwed.

At this point, there really was

nothing to say beyond admitting the truth.

He did love Kei, but sometimes the blonde wasn't enough. He didn't have the history Koutarou and Keiji did nor the understanding.

The blonde did try, and he had improved with expressing his feelings and not closing himself off ever since they had gotten together, Koutarou could give him that.

But it would never be enough.

He looked over at Keiji who was pacing back and forth with red rimmed eyes as he had cried once they saw that they had been caught.

He too loved Kei, though it was more platonic than romantic, it was still love.

Kei and Keiji, when they could, had weekly outings and every weekend was sacred to them.

If they were both in town during the weekend they made sure to meet up for breakfast.

It hurt him to know he had done something to hurt the blonde who had confided in him and trusted him explicably when he had no reason to.

He had worked hard to get Kei to open up to him, it had taken years of friendship to reach the level of trust they had with each other.

In a blink of an eye it was all gone.

Looking at the black haired beauty, at the despair on his tired face, he knew Keiji was blaming himself.

He was as much to blame as Koutarou after all.

He could've walked away at any point from Koutarou. Walked away from his bedsheets and stopped his own advances on the married man as well if the blond had actually meant that much to him.

The reality was that despite trying to make himself feel better, despite the appearance of caring for Kei, Keiji enjoyed the thrill of fucking Koutarou much more than he cared for friendships or trust no matter which way he looked at it.

Koutarou stood and hugged the man from behind. Keiji curled in on himself, tears coming to his eyes again.

"We're horrible," he whispered.

Koutarou remained silent, arms still firm around Keiji's waist.

His heart was torn but he didn't regret anything beyond dragging poor Kei into all of this.

"We're in love," Koutarou told him firmly. "Yeah, we made some messed up choices but it doesn't

make us horrible people 'kaashi."

Keiji shook his head, voice but a whisper between the sobs. "We hurt him. He trusted us and we hurt him."

Koutarou only tightened his grip, eyes catching sight of the wedding ring he usually wore sitting on the bedside table next to Keiji's bed.

Maybe they were horrible.

Love, or even lust, had a way of making people stupid after all.

* * *

Tetsurou was absolutely furious.

He was on his way over to Kei's, one hand gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were

white, his other hand on his thigh, fingers tapping away.

He had just gotten off the phone with Tadashi, getting the first real news about the blonde since all hell had broken loose. He had been worried about Kei since earlier, even making sure to call out of work so he'd be available should the blonde need him.

He knew sometimes he'd have to push Tsukki to accept help but he also knew that sometimes the

blonde would prefer not to be bothered until he reached out to someone.

Tetsu figured in this case that he might want to blow off some steam or cry-Tsukki was always

wary of crying in front of others- for a bit before anyone saw him himself, Tadashi,and Akiteru included.

Though all three had seen the blonde cry on numerous occasions it didn't mean they had seen when the tears first came.

Tetsurou continued to drive, thinking about how he had found out about Bokuto and Akaashi in the middle of the night.

He had been up grading his student's essays and watching some videos of the National Volleyball team all warm and cozy in his bed when suddenly a notification popped up on his phone.

Curious, he put his reading glasses on, one hand still petting his cat Shiro.

He only had a few apps

and e-mail notifications enabled, so surely it must be something important or hopefully entertaining.

Waiting for the page to

load, he was shocked when the an article was displayed, the title reading "Famous Volleyball Player Caught in an Affair".

Tetsurou's blood ran cold.

He knew almost all the players on the national team personally, having been a player on the team until about 2 years ago.

He couldn't believe one of the boys would be so heartless as to cheat on their significant other.

Against his better judgement, he scrolled on, heart stopping when he saw a familiar hairdo, spiky

black and grey hair that was unmistakable.

The boy in his arms was also another well known figure.

Akaashi wasn't hard to miss, and

Tetsu's heart broke even more.

Anger, shock, disbelief.

He felt all of this and more. Part of him wanted to be rational and assume they were just hanging out together but the video of them kissing, hugging and just having a good time was more than enough evidence that an affair was going on.

His heart ached for Kei who was sure to be heartbroken.

Kei, who had spent so many years in love and dedicated to Bokuto and even longer having been dedicated to a friendship with Akaashi.

He would never admit it, but the darker side of his heart was a bit happy, maybe now Tetsurou

himself would have a chance with the blonde.

He smacked himself lightly on his cheeks.

Now was not the time to be thinking of this.

He needed to focus on Kei who had been betrayed and needed his support.

He continued to drive, thoughts drifting to the conversation he had had with Bokuto earlier that

morning.

He hadn't tried to deny anything, he had pleaded a bit for Kuroo to understand his situation but

stopped once he realized he wasn't going to get any sympathy from his former best friend.

"You told me you'd protect him," Tetsurou had all but spat into the receiver of his phone. "But I guess that's just another lie you told."

The intake of breath Bokuto took could be heard, his soft humorless laugh followed.

"Guess I'm nothing but a lying sack of shit," he said softly. "For what it's worth I am sorry. I did try to protect him, just, I couldn't protect him from me. I'm sorry Tetsu."

"Whatever. I hope you and Akaashi are happy."

"Please...just...please take care of him."

"...Just worry about yourself. You've done enough damage."

Tetsu had hung up then, flinging his phone in anger.

He sat down heavily, running his hands through his hair.

He was mad because his best friend betrayed the boy he loved, a boy he had been pinning after for quite sometime, a boy who was also one of his best friends.

He was mad because someone he trusted deceived him and his friend to steal the other man.

He was mad that for people who promised to be there unconditionally and who were supposed to trust each other betrayed that trust without hesitation.

He was sad for Kei who had truly loved Bokuto with everything he had.

He was sad for the bond none of

them would ever regain.

Tetsurou hated being an adult more than anything sometimes.

* * *

**Well, there ya go.****I dunno why I like angst so much.****Also, I do not condone cheating irl folks.****Seriously, if you don't want someone don't drag em along.****Be a decent human being and break up with em.**


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